Stanislaus County Ca Development And Redevelopment

It was the nuisance factor that finally did him in--the sheer grind of farming a piece of land within bicycling, theft and vandalism range of the Stanislaus County citizenry. "People seem to think that it's a nice, big orchard out there, and the owner won't mind if I go pick a bag of peaches," says Ron Vella, a third-generation farmer who recently sold an orchard in this rapidly developing farm town. "I might want to walk into their front room and take a vase off the goddamn table.

Here in walnut and almond country, the locals conjure up Los Angeles as the dreadful specter, the easy emblem for what ails California's agricultural heartland. If only L.A. had held on to its farming roots, they say. If only its planners and politicians had the gumption to tell the real estate developers "enough." It is probably too facile to say that the 1980s ushered in the Los Angeles-ization of the San Joaquin Valley.

Larry Hooker's van idles at a red light at the corner of Coffee Road and Briggsmore Avenue, a downtown intersection in this fast-growing city of 165,000. On the northeast corner sprawls Memorial Medical Center; across the street, Calvary Temple Christian School. There are houses, a gas station--nothing out of the ordinary for a Central Valley county seat. Unless you've been farming here for 40 years. "In my memory, this was all farmland," Hooker says as he muses and cruises the city.

It was the nuisance factor that finally did him in--the sheer grind of farming a piece of land within bicycling, theft and vandalism range of the Stanislaus County citizenry. "People seem to think that it's a nice, big orchard out there, and the owner won't mind if I go pick a bag of peaches," says Ron Vella, a third-generation farmer who recently sold an orchard in this rapidly developing farm town. "I might want to walk into their front room and take a vase off the goddamn table.

Here in walnut and almond country, the locals conjure up Los Angeles as the dreadful specter, the easy emblem for what ails California's agricultural heartland. If only L.A. had held on to its farming roots, they say. If only its planners and politicians had the gumption to tell the real estate developers "enough." It is probably too facile to say that the 1980s ushered in the Los Angeles-ization of the San Joaquin Valley.

He bought the orchard in 1962 and sold it last year, 78 acres of prime farmland, soil that can grow just about anything. By the end of the year, Ron Vella's peach orchard will start pushing up California's latest cash crop--the ranch house. Vella got fed up. When he bought the orchard, there were houses on the east side and a school on the northeast corner. Today, houses push in on two sides, and another subdivision has been planned for the third.

Larry Hooker's van idles at a red light at the corner of Coffee Road and Briggsmore Avenue, a downtown intersection in this fast-growing city of 165,000. On the northeast corner sprawls Memorial Medical Center; across the street, Calvary Temple Christian School. There are houses, a gas station--nothing out of the ordinary for a Central Valley county seat. Unless you've been farming here for 40 years. "In my memory, this was all farmland," Hooker says as he muses and cruises the city.

He bought the orchard in 1962 and sold it last year, 78 acres of prime farmland, soil that can grow just about anything. By the end of the year, Ron Vella's peach orchard will start pushing up California's latest cash crop--the ranch house. Vella got fed up. When he bought the orchard, there were houses on the east side and a school on the northeast corner. Today, houses push in on two sides, and another subdivision has been planned for the third.